1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to a method and system for configuring computer devices, and more particularly, to a system and method for identifying and configuring computer devices requiring unique serial numbers.
2. Description of the Related Art
The use of computers, especially personal computers (PCs) is widespread. The computing power of the PC, whether coupled to a network or operating as a stand-alone device has increased significantly as new computer designs move into production. As a result, the installation and setup of a computer requires many different components or devices to handle the variety of functionality offered by today""s computers. Also, before the computer system is shipped these different components or devices may be assigned a unique serial number stored within that component or device.
The assigning of a unique serial number may be required for communication identification for some devices in accordance with industry standard specifications. Also, having more than one device plugged into the personal computer requires the operating system to have a way (using the serial number) to differentiate between the devices. Currently, the device firmware is a binary program that is burned to flash memory or EPROM in the device. Therefore, the firmware needs to be changed for every device to include a unique serial number resulting in the time required to burn in a unique serial number for each component time consuming and costly.
Consequently, it would be desirable to provide an improved method and system that uses the same firmware burned into each device yet has the capability of providing a unique serial number without having to modify the firmware each time. The subject invention herein solves all of these problems in a new and unique manner that has not been part of the art previously.
The present invention is embodied in a method and system for assigning during configuration a unique serial number for a computer device. The method uses firmware embedded within the device which when first initialized executes code for assigning and storing a unique serial number by use of a random number generator. In one embodiment, the unique serial number is generated based on the device""s internal clock. Based on the amount of bit space typically reserved for a device""s serial number, the number of combinations are great enough to make the serial number unique by use of a random number. Once the serial number is stored in the devices embedded firmware a random number is never generated again.
The above as well as additional objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent in the following detailed written description.